


missing, presumed dead

by hailingstars



Series: unbelievably unlikely (febuwhump 2020) [22]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Co-Parenting, Custody Arrangements, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Parent Tony Stark, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Presumed Dead, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, febuwhump 2020, he gets one don't worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: They hadn’t had a funeral for Peter.There hadn’t been a casket or a service inside a church.There had been, before Tony decided in his heart that Peter was gone, candlelight vigils and pleas on the media for whoever had taken him to bring him home. Neither of those did any good. Neither of those brought Peter home.ORTony Stark's son gets kidnapped when he's two. Twelve years later he comes back.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: unbelievably unlikely (febuwhump 2020) [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619662
Comments: 62
Kudos: 1019





	missing, presumed dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArdenSkyeHolmes221](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdenSkyeHolmes221/gifts).



> gifted to the amazing Arden!! I know this uses two of your favorite tropes and I hope you enjoy!!

Tony threw some oats out in the pond and watched with a faint smile as a flock of ducks hurried towards them. Feeding the ducks in Central Park was a tradition, one Tony honored every Saturday, without fail. Sometimes there were no ducks. Sometimes there were ducks, but Tony didn’t feed them.

He’d sit on a bench and watch as other families, as father and sons would walk by, and remember that once he was a father.

They hadn’t had a funeral for Peter.

There hadn't been a casket or a service inside a church.

There had been, before Tony decided in his heart that Peter was gone, candlelight vigils and pleas on the media for whoever had taken him to bring him home. Neither of those did any good. Neither of those brought Peter home.

It’d been twelve years since Tony had seen his son, held him, listened to him laugh as the ducks came to collect their oats. It’d been twelve years, and he was technically still just missing. His body had never been found, but Tony what happened to missing two-year-olds who weren’t found in the first few hours.

He only wished he could get his hands on the piece of shit who stole and murdered his child.

Tony threw the last of his oats into the water and watched the ducks fight over them. This was the last connection he had to his boy, and if he was still and listened, he could almost hear the memory of him laughing.

“Holy shit.”

Tony froze in place, dread creeping up on him, the way it always did when some approached him while he was trying to pay tribute to Peter.

“You’re Tony Stark.”

Tony might’ve chased him off with a biting quip if the boy hadn’t sounded so young, and once he turned and saw the boy speaking, it was hard for him to form words at all.

“I… I am.”

“Whoa,” he said. A light in his face. An excitement in his voice. Both incredibly familiar and stabbing at Tony from the inside. “Just – I didn’t expect Iron Man to be here, feeding the ducks.”

Tony looked down and saw a bag of oats in the boy’s hand. His pumped around, wildly in his chest, and he felt as if he might explode at any second.

The boy frowned. “Are… are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Tony gasped and shook his head and backed up, until he was sitting on a bench, trying his best not to breath and remind himself that Peter was dead. That he wasn’t stand in front of him, concerned. That it was just a boy who reminded him of Peter but telling himself all these things didn’t stop his heart for hoping.

“Um,” said the boy, biting his bottom lip and attempting to dig his Converse into the concrete path. “Should I call someone for you?”

The words didn’t hit him until a couple seconds later. Tony was too caught up with the idea of his son wearing Converse and still, after all these years, enjoying feeding the ducks.

“No –“ said Tony, getting control of his breath, getting over the shock of this kid’s appearance. “I’m good – I just- “

“You’re having a panic attack,” he told him. “I get them too sometimes.”

“Yeah,” said Tony, nodding his head, still looking the kid up and down. “What’s your name, kid?”

He smiled. “Peter Parker.”

“Uh, what do your parents do?”

Peter didn’t look up off by the question. Instead, he came and sat down on the bench next to him, and Tony figured Peter just assumed he was trying to talk himself through a panic attack.

“My parents are dead,” said Peter. “But I live with my aunt May, and she’s a nurse. She does a lot of volunteer work, too.”

Tony nodded and the gears in his head turned, thinking of all the various ways this could be his son. That he could have Peter back.

“You’ve been in the city long?”

“No,” said Peter, shaking his head. “Just moved here a couple of months ago. I’ve lived all over, really, used to live in the country with my mom and dad, before well, they died.” He trailed off, frowning and scrunching up his face, like he was trying to remember. He shook it off and kept going. “I really like it here, though, Mr. Stark. I love walking around Central Park.” He titled his head over towards the pond. “I like the – “

“-ducks,” Tony finished for him.

“Yeah. It’s really weird. Just feels sort of peaceful, you know? And safe,” said Peter, then laughed. “Maybe I was a duck in a past life or something.”

“Yeah or something.”

Just then, Peter’s phone with off. He pulled it from his pocket and a look of panic crossed his face. “Oh, shit. I’m late.” He scrambled off the bench and shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Are you gonna be okay, Mr. Stark? Maybe you should call someone.”

“I’m good, kid,” said Tony, looking at Peter’s eyes. Very, very familiar eyes.

“Okay, nice meeting you,” he told him, before running off, and completely forgetting about the bag of oats he’d come with.

It sat on the bench next to Tony and had just enough DNA on it for him to put his theory to test.

*

“Tones.”

He ignored it, while he carefully ran the bag of oats through one of the scanners and waited for the result.

“Tones,” repeated Rhodey, taking a few strides into the workshop. “Are you okay? Pepper just called and said you were having a hard – that you were rambling on about seeing Peter in the park… what are you doing?” 

“A DNA test.”

“Tony – “

“-you weren’t there,” said Tony. “It was him. I… I just know.”

Tony didn’t realize how much he believed it until he said it out loud, didn’t realize how much he’d hung his heart on this unbelievably unlikely that his Peter was still alive.

Out of all the teenagers in New York, out of all the teenagers in the world, the odds of him having ran into his son in the park were extremely low. He knew. Logically, but his heart’s hope was wild and uncontainable.

It took just a few seconds, then Friday announced via the intercom that it was a match.

That Peter Parker was really Peter Stark.

That Tony’s son was still alive and well and living in New York City, right under his nose.

That Peter was coming home, and once he did, Tony was never letting him go.

*

Getting him back wasn’t as simple as walking into the police station and showing them his DIY DNA test.

That had helped, sure, alongside the fact that he was actually Iron Man, but even still, there were procedures to follow. Law Enforcement couldn’t be swayed not to follow them, no matter how loudly Tony berated them, and when police handed out to collect Peter and May from their apartment in Queens, Tony was benched.

Quite literally.

He was sitting on a bench in the waiting room of the police station. Officers and Rhodey and Pepper had all told him he should go home and wait for a call.

Tony wouldn’t do it. He wanted a glimpse of the woman who raised his child, and eventually, he got one.

Two detectives led May Parker back to interrogation room and Tony clinched his jaw, along with every muscle in his body. Pepper rubbed his shoulder as they watched her disappear and listened to a voice that broke Tony’s heart.

“Why won’t anyone tell me what’s happening?” asked Peter, sounding far younger than he had in the park. He stepped into their view, also being guided by two detectives. “My aunt hasn’t done anything wrong, okay? I can explain – she didn’t even know.”

Tony frowned, both at the ache in his chest and the words coming out of Peter’s mouth. He knew the boy probably wasn’t talking about his own abduction. Probably, he’d attended some party and got a little tipsy, or skipped class and now thought he was in trouble for it. Whatever childish, teenage antics Peter was involved in.

He couldn’t wait to find out, couldn’t wait to figure all the things his kid liked to do, even they were something that could get him into trouble.

“Just follow us,” said a detective.

Peter looked utter crushed, defeated, as he disappeared down the hallway, and it was Pepper’s hand on his shoulder that stopped Tony from following after him and offering some comfort.

It’d make things worse, Tony knew. He was a stranger to his own son, and technically, the person causing his life to descend into chaos.

“Poor kid,” whispered Pepper. Rhodey made a noise in agreement.

Tony blinked and swallowed down some stomach acid, remembering the happy kid he’d met at the park and how it’d been Tony to make his voice sound like that, to make his face look like that.

*

Tony sat in a bar and stared at the glass of whiskey in front him.

It’d been years since he had a drink, and he barely remembered the days he drunk. It was a stretch of darkness, a stretch of speeches from Pepper, begging him to get help, that all melted into one. His recovery was the same. Dark in his memory, save all those nights on the bathroom floor, his head in toilet and Rhodey standing nearby, supporting him through it all, but only when Tony had allowed him to.

The day he finally found Peter should’ve been a happy day, not one he was considering a relapse.

The truth was, finding Peter was a lot like losing him again.

His son didn’t belong to him. Not anymore. May was his parent, and who he left the police station with. At the end of the day, Tony had insisted on it.

She wasn’t guilty. She hadn’t kidnapped. Just like Peter said, she’d gotten custody of him when his ‘parents’ died, and Tony believed her, believed the detectives when they explained Peter’s abduction was still a mystery, but what they did know was that it wasn’t May Parker.

She was kind, they told him. She volunteered at charities and loved Peter like she was her own son. She spoke with a sincerity in her eyes, the kind that convinced everyone it was true.

Tony was relieved, but he hated her. Hated her because he was relieved, because she provided a secure place for his son to grow up, but that place wasn’t with Tony and he _hated_ it. Hated that there was no one left to blame, no one left for him to shout at or punch until they lost consciousness, or their lives.

Hated that maybe it’d been Peter had been taken away from him. Hated that he’d probably never be able to provide him with the kind of love that created the polite, well-mannered boy he’d met that day at the park.

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony turned and watched May as she slid up onto the bar stool next to him.

“Not a good time.”

“Yeah, well,” she said. “It’s never a good time, is it? Your girlfriend told me you might be here.”

“Pepper? She’s not –“ said Tony, confused. “We’re not dating.”

May laughed. A strange thing to do on a day like today, a day that changed both their worlds forever.

“Now I know where Peter gets his cluelessness from,” she told him. “He’s the same way. Swears up and down there’s nothing going on between him and a girl on his decathlon team.”

“He’s… on a decathlon?”

May nodded. “He’s the smartest kid on it. Guess he gets that from you, too.”

May’s hand crossed over into his space and locked around his glass of whiskey. She stole it. Took it right out from under him and began sipping on it, without even acknowledging her thievery. Fortunately Tony was too preoccupied by his son being a nerd to care about alcohol.

“What… what else does he like?”

“Star Wars,” said May, right away. “He likes watching movies, and dumpster diving. He collects parts and builds things… he’s been liking to sneak out lately too. I’d like to figure that one out.”

May took another sip of the whiskey and Tony thought about his son, the Star Wars loving dumpster diver, just to scrap up enough parts to build something worthwhile. A faint smile crossed his face, thinking up the two of them, in the workshop. That maybe someday that would be a reality.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark,” said May. “Peter’s such… well he’s a light. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to lose him.”

Tony nodded. “And you won’t have to. I’m not – I’m not gonna take him away.”

It was the right choice, the only choice. Tony had seen the pain, the confusion on Peter’s face, and he didn’t want to be the cause of anymore of it.

“Let’s face it,” said Tony. “He’s probably a lot better off without me. I have no idea how to be a good father.”

“That’s not really true, though is it?” asked May. “You put Peter before yourself today when you let him go back to Queens. You put what he needed first, even when it was within your right to take him… that’s what a good parent does.”

May’s words were fresh air, but also, made Tony realize it had been the right decision, made him more thankful, less angry. If he hadn’t been able to raise his son, he was happy someone like May was looking after him.

“He wants to see you,” May told him. “I told him to wait in the car… uh, we didn’t want you to have another panic attack.”

Tony forced out a laugh. There was nothing else to do, no other emotion to feel, except incredibly raw and drained and tired in a way he’d never been.

“I’ll brace myself.”

May nodded with a smile, got her phone and sent a quick text message.

Next thing Tony knew he was staring at Peter again. He wasn’t upset or worried like he’d been back the station. Apprehensive, maybe, but welcoming. May let Peter sit down on the stool she’d be using and excused herself to go to the ladies’ room.

“So,” said Peter, after a few seconds of awkward staring. “I guess you’re my dad.”

“I guess so.”

“It’s kind of weird,” said Peter. “I – I’ve always heard about the missing Stark kid, and now… I’m him?” He stopped, paused. “I’m sorry I got kidnapped.”

Tony stared at him, then laughed. A nature, genuine laugh, at the situation. At the absurdity. His own child apologizing for being abducted. “Jesus, kid. It’s not your fault. Personally I blame the nanny.”

Peter returned his smile.

“I hear you like building things,” said Tony, quick to get a conversation going, quick to make the weird awkwardness go away.

“Yeah,” said Peter. “I’m working on a new gaming computer… it’s almost done, I just need to find a few more parts – “

“I can help with that, you know,” he told him. “I have a workshop. Has everything you need… maybe you’d like to drop by sometime. We’ll work on your computer.”

“Really?” Peter’s entire face lit up. “Together? And you’d help me?”

“If you’re as smart as your aunt says, I doubt you need the help, but I’d love to see your thought process.”

“Can we… can we go now?”

“Like right this second?” asked Tony, not understanding himself, not understanding why he’d chose to question the very thing he wanted most, time with Peter.

“Um, well, Mr. Stark,” said Peter, adjusting his feet on the barstool. “It’s Friday.”

“I know that.”

“Okay, well, it’s the start of the weekend, and May and I were talking, and I think it’d be really cool if I could, just, come over and stay the night?” he asked, starting to rush out his words. “You know, if you’re not busy. It doesn’t have to be every weekend, I just figured, I really want you in my life – not just cause you’re Iron Man even though that’s pretty cool – you’re my – you’re family and we should know each other and – “

“Kid,” said Tony. He felt bad for cutting him off, but he sensed Peter might never stop word vomiting if he didn’t. “I’d love for you to come over. Whenever you want.”

Peter took a breath, nodded, and smiled, just as May returned from the bathroom.

“So,” said May. “How’re we feeling?”

“Good,” said Peter. “I’m going to go and stay the night at Mr – “

“-Tony.”

“At Tony’s house.”

May smiled at her nephew, and it was like they had some sort of secret language Tony wished that, someday, he might be part it.

“Good, we’ll go get your things,” said May, then turned to Tony. “And then I’ll drop him by your place?”

Tony nodded.

“It’s a plan,” said May. Peter hopped off the stool, and started to walk away, but Tony couldn’t do it, couldn’t let that boy walk out of his sight again.

“Wait.”

The Parkers waited, and Tony looked directly at Peter, into his brown eyes, eyes that Tony sometimes saw in the mirror.

“Can I –“ started Tony. “Can I hug you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Tony stood up, took step forward, and put two arms around Peter, squeezing him so tight Tony feared he might knock the air of him. He gripped his arms, reveling in the truth that his boy was alive, he was real, and he had him back. 

Peter was tense, rigid, in his arms, at first, but slowly, he leaned into him and hugged him.

“Oh,” he said. “This is nice.”

*

Two weeks flew by and Tony’s life had been changed in a way he both welcomed and worshipped.

Every Wednesday he had dinner with Peter and May in Queens, every weekend he got to spend time with his kid, and every other Saturday morning in sat in the audience and watch his nerd kickass at his decathlon meets.

May been correct. Peter was a light and lit up every dark area of his life and made it brighter, made it livable.

Once he thought he’d lost Peter because he had May, and now Tony knew he couldn’t parent his kid without her. They were a team, they were making the best of the shitty hand life had dealt them together, and the bonus was, Peter reaped the benefits of their partnership.

At least he did most of the time.

Tony had only been a father for two weeks and already found himself snooping through Peter’s bedroom, at May’s request. They were both determined to figure out what it was that was causing to Peter to sneak in and out his bedroom window in the middle of the night.

Tony didn’t expect to find answers so soon, but he did. He stood in Peter’s doorway, with his mouth hung open, as he saw the masked, pajama wearing vigilante Spider-Man crawl through Peter’s room and up on the ceiling.

He dropped down with a flip, completely unaware Tony was watching, and ripped off his mask, revealing it was Peter underneath.

“What the f – “

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!! 
> 
> kudos and/or comments let me know what you think!! 
> 
> [come yell at me on tumblr](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)


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